Student in the Underworld

The setting of Student in the Underworld takes place fifty years ago—in the 1960’s, mostly in San Francisco’s historic Butcher Town. It’s ironic, however, that Student is not about the anti-war/flower child movement; nor is it a work set in academia, although both do appear in the novel’s background. At that time there was far more going on in the city of St. Francis than the media-dominated vision of the Haight-Ashbury/student protest scene. And that much more happens via the framework of the Butcher Town Writers’ Guild. The main character, Student, has just left the Vietnam wartime Navy as an officer to find he must deal with anachronistic characters steeped in political causes thirty years gone—from the Great Depression and Wobblie days. But he too must fight his own anachronistic dreamscape of pre-fab homes, starched blouses, and—above all—name-brand normalcy. Student takes a bumpy ride through all this as he comes to terms with modern femininity in the persons of three women. A whimsical tone intermixes with poignancy to carry the reader along Student’s journey.